Esports Racing League: RAFA ERA Esports by EMM take VCO Esports title

The VCO Esports Racing League broke records in sim racing throughout the last four months for using the most different platforms of any competition.

After Assetto Corsa Competizione, Le Mans Ultimate, Gran Turismo 7, iRacing and Rennsport, the best four teams gathered at Sim Formula Europe in Maastricht for the Final on Marcel Offermans’ developing project, The Last Garage. 

The sim’s competitive debut was at last year’s SFE, where Devin Braune took victory. This year, there are double the competitions with VCO joining, utilising two fictional features, the VCARUS AECH at Parzival Park Circuit. 

Heat Stage

RAFA ERA took the early advantage with Michal Smidl’s opening heat pole position, but contact instigated by Daire McCormack sent him to the back. The Irishman would go on to win on the road, but received two penalty points for Virtus.pro (VP) in what is thought to be its final ever event, while Team Nitro finished second and third. 

They really started to control the competition from that point, with Tobias Groenewald winning race two, although an overtake off circuit also garnered them penalty points. Michael Tauscher was the first pole sitter to win on the road in heat three. 

This effectively secured Team Nitro’s place in the two-team final, with RAFA ERA, VP and Williams fighting it out for the other spot.

Dominik Blajer got Williams off to a great start with pole, but on lap one of the race, his teammate Tobias Pfeffer got into contact with Daire McCormack, ending both their teams’ chances of qualifying and sending RAFA ERA through effectively by default. 

Final

The format for the last stage of the competition was a head-to-head, with the team whose best two drivers finish better than the others would get one point in a best-of-three battle.

Tauscher became the first driver to secure two poles on the day in the first race, but at the start, it was his other teammates who made contact and spun around. 

Michal Smidl rubbed salt into the wound by overtaking Tauscher and taking the win, and RAFA ERA went 1-0 up. The top four were reversed for the grid of race two, which put Jernej Simoncic on pole, and RAFA ERA into prime position to win the event overall. 

The Slovenian held onto the lead off the start, and at the start of lap four, Groenewald let Tauscher past, believing that the two-time pole sitter would have a better chance at passing for the win. And they may have been right, as coming into lap 10 Tauscher had his first chance at getting alongside, only for Simoncic to bat it away. 

In fact, aggressive defensive moves happened again and again, right up to the last lap, where Tauscher hit Simoncic one last time and went into the grass. Groenewald had nowhere near enough time to mount a challenge, and Simoncic would hold on for the race win.

After a nervous wait for the stewards, RAFA ERA Esports were soon confirmed as 2-0 winners over the #1 seeds Team Nitro. It was a fittingly dramatic end to a long and varied season, where the team’s strength across multiple platforms came out on top.